ALMS 2012 - BMW finishes respectable 3rd and 5th at Mid-Ohio and remains in second place overall - Rahal says cars not equal

BMW Motorsport team RLL managed a 3rd and 5th place finish at the 2012 Mid-Ohio ALMS Grand Prix. BMW gets its fourth podium finish in what has been a tough season so far with new regulations slowing the M3's a bit. The finish was good enough to keep BMW in second place 20 points behind Chevrolet who looks like the favorite to win it going forward. BMW continues to blame the new regulations and says they simply are not fast enough to compete due to them.

Team principle Bobby Rahal stated, "With all the restrictions the series has placed upon us, and the freedoms they have given to the competition, we are just not fast enough. There is an obvious imbalance evident in the last few races and I hope that the ALMS will do the right thing. When you know you don’t have the pace you have to rely on strategy and luck. This week the Corvette had an incident and we got lucky again. We need to get back to fair and equal footing and give these guys a run for their money.”

We will see if ALMS does not anything to address the complaints coming from the BMW team. The next race is August 18th at Road America.

Bill Auberlen, driver No. 55 M3 GT(third): “Really, despite the pole, we were out of contention from the first pit stop. The pit speed limit penalty put a fork in it. We were prepared, but just not fast enough over an entire stint.”

Jörg Müller, driver No. 55 M3 GT (third): - “A podium finish is always good, but I am not happy with the stop and go penalty due to pit lane speeding. There is one button to push for the pit speed limiter. I pushed the button and I got a speed violation. We need to look into that data. We are all working very hard, but we need to be able to fight for better results.”Joey Hand, driver No. 56 M3 GT(fifth): – “I had to be aggressive from the green flag because we were starting from quite far back. I gave it everything I had and tried to make some waves. I gained some positions, but we just don’t have the speed on the straights. It is just too easy for everyone to get past us.”

Dirk Müller, driver No. 56 M3 GT (fifth): “Obviously, it was not our day – again. To add insult to injury, when I got in the car the tear-off glue stayed on the windscreen and I could hardly see anything in front of me. I had a view to left and right, but it was very difficult to drive one hour almost blind. It was a tough day at the office.”